Chapter Text
Experience has taught Bob that phone calls in the night mean nothing good.
He doesn’t sleep well as it is, a combination of brutal Navy training, the fact that he doesn’t do that well in the dark and the memories of his own childhood in the background make sure of that.
But today had been brutal. Working under Cain who seemed determined to drive his pilots into the ground one way or another had taken the stuffing out of him. Doesn’t help that they can’t find him a semi competent pilot to work with as well. He half wishes he could put in for a transfer but he has two weeks until his rotation is up and he can’t say that the love for Cain is returned so with any luck he can bump somewhere else and work under another Admiral.
He hears Simpson has always treated his pilots as human beings and not test machines.
Also he treats his WSO’s as if they are equals and not beneath said pilots.
This is the Navy. Scuttlebutt has always been how they trade favours. Bob keeps quiet and keeps in the corner. He knows shit. Comes with the job.
So when the phone goes in the middle of the night he jerks awake instantly and has to take a second to remind himself sternly that he is in his Navy house in Fightertown and not his home in South Carolina and his father is not pacing the stairs looking for something to kick (more often or not him) and he manages to catch it on the last ring.
Granted if it was important he knew they’d ring back but he remembers home and what his father would do when he never called back and…
Suffice to say it has not been a good night.
“Floyd”
“Lieutenant Floyd”
It’s an official voice and it’s only because it’s an official voice that Bob manages to reply with some kind of grace and skill.
“Yes?”
“Lieutenant this is Commander Kate Gordon of the Pacific West Military Hospital calling about some paperwork we had on record for you?”
Bob checks the clock just to make sure he has not fallen into some bizzarro dream and he blinks.
Paperwork? At three fucking AM in the morning?
“Yes” he says and perhaps the tone in his voice gives it away because when the Commander next speaks he can almost hear the smile in her voice.
“Lieutenant when you first submitted your paperwork you confirmed you had been a bone marrow doner? You entered the registry is that correct?”
Bob scrubs a hand over his face. It does sound correct, certainly it sounds like something he had done in the past but it’s three am so his brain is not really working right.
“Yeah sounds about right” he says heavily over the phone and he can practically hear the woman’s decisive nod.
“Lieutenant are you aware of the work we do in our paediatric clinic? We routinely check our records for any matches with servicemen and woman who are keen to donate who are stateside and we have a child in our clinic who desperately needs a bone marrow transplant and…well…you passed the test with flying colours”
It takes Bob a minute to focus on that. He doesn’t know what the hell he is supposed to do with this information but it seeps into his brain at such a slow rate is it almost alarming.
“Lieutenant?”
“I’m sorry I just…you do get Commander it is three in the morning?”
She laughs gently down the phone and it makes him think maybe he’s not fucked up his career too badly by being as honest as he can under the circumstances.
“I am aware of that Lieutenant and I would normally wait until morning but this child has been on the list for a long time…to have him finally have a match…well…we’re all a little excited over here. I know that you must have something’s to sort out on your end but if you could come in so we can talk you through the procedure…I mean…” she realises stuttering and it takes Bob a minute to realise that a fucking Commander is stuttering through the phone at him and he has to pinch himself to make sure that this is not some bizzarro fever dream brought on by bad sushi.
“I mean if you are able to donate we would really appreciate it.”
“Eh…” he looks at the clock and winces.
“I need someone to get in touch with my commander” he says honestly. “I’m not sure if time off is gonna be an issue with Admiral…” he trails off because he doesn’t want to be the guy that slags of the Admiral down the phone especially to a Commander who technically outranks him. He’s never been that kind of guy even though he suspects Cain’s reputation proceeds him.
“Which one?”
Well…he can’t technically lie can he?
“Cain” he says flatly.
He thinks he can almost hear the eye roll down the phone.
“Leave it with me” she says and her voice is so convincing and so soothing that he believes her.
Almost.
“Commander?”
“Yes?”
“Can I ask…how old’s this kid?”
“Five"
Shit.
“And he needs me?”
He doesn’t know if she can tell him what the kid has but he thinks if the boy (from what he can gather) has been needing a bone marrow transplant for as long as she says he has then there is a reason why she is calling him at three in the morning. There’s a reason behind all of it.
“Yes” he says and she can practically hear her relief over the phone and Bob nods because as corny as it sounds he didn’t get into the Navy for shock and awe, he genuinely got into it to help other people.
“Alright” he says eyeing the clock and calculating the distance in his head.
“I can be there in just under an hour to start the process”.
“You can?”
“Yes…but Commander my Admiral…”
Is going to be pissed he thinks but he doesn’t say it. He’s fairly confident Whippet (his co-pilot) is going to be fine with it, man has three children himself and is a nice enough guy (even though he takes way to many risks in the air for a man with a wife, three children and a mortgage to pay off) but Cain…Cain likes to think all his men and woman (and Christ you have to beg the man to take a woman on his team) live only to please him. And yeah, while most of them live for the job (otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it), the reality is they have other things to do that are equally more important.
Case in point.
This.
“Lieutenant” she says and seems to be almost grinning down the phone.
“Have you heard of Admiral Thomas Kazansky”
Has he heard of the Admiral of the Pacific Fleet?
Has he heard of Iceman?”
“Yes”
“You heard of his husband?”
Maverick? A day with Cain isn’t a normal day with Cain unless he’s bitched about Maverick six ways to Sunday before lunch.
“Yes”
“Lieutenant who do you think pulled shrapnel out of him the last time”
And then she hangs up and Bob is left to stare at the phone wondering just what in the name of all that his holy he has just walked into.
It doesn’t matter he thinks as he slips out of bed and grabs his glasses.
This is bigger than him.
He’s not sleeping. Jake doesn’t really sleep anymore, too many nightmares of waking up and finding his baby boy cold next to him. He’s aware more than anyone else that he is on borrowed time and it frightens him so hard his hands shake.
Noah laughs and says that he is silly and Jake laughs too and doesn’t have the heart to tell his baby boy that he is running out of time and Jake’s hands shake because every damn day he has with him is precious and milestones like Christmas and Easter and Birthdays are no longer guaranteed.
He can’t break in front of Noah so he waits until his baby boy is asleep under the covers and his breathing can be heard and then he goes downstairs and breaks quietly on the couch most nights.
Noah is the accidental product of a one night stand that lasted seven days too long. Jake had just been about to be posted overseas when he had found out about the baby boy that was literally dumped on his doorstep with a note saying he was called Noah and a pack of paperwork saying he had full custody.
All he can say is thank God for Javy and Meghan. His best friend and his wife knew exactly what to do in a crisis and suddenly he has a nursery and a custody agreement in place and a birth certificate and then he managed to change his paperwork and somehow it was working.
(Noah didn’t come with a middle name or with godparents, he has a middle name of Javier and his godparents are Javy and Meghan—he does not expect the favour to be repaid even though Meghan had squealed so loud she had set Noah off screaming like a demented car alarm)
Things had been going pretty well. Both Javy and him had been sent back to Top Gun to work under Maverick, he’d only just stopped himself from killing Rooster (a plus) he had managed to chalk himself another kill, Iceman (the ICEMAN) had commented on the way to see his husband that you fly well kid and somehow that had led to a permendant squad being formed (even though Phoenix’s WSO had retired afterwards and she was not used to flying alone).
That had changed when he had found out.
One fucking lousy check up with his five year old and…
Aplastic Anemia.
Jake confesses he had never heard of it either.
But the case was very clear. Noah needed a bone marrow and he needed one fast because if left untreated it could turn into Leukaemia and holy hell if that didn’t send him to the toilets vomiting and crying his guts out as if he was the one who was sick and not his confused and somewhat sleepy five year old.
That had been two years ago.
Now they were running out of time.
It was Rooster surprisingly who had suggested tapping into the members of the military who signed up to be bone marrow doners. All of his squad including Maverick and though it couldn’t be proven he suspected, Cyclone, Warlock and the Iceman (and even some of the 86 boys legends like Slider and Wolfman and Hollywood who Maverick claimed were only to happy to help—and only Maverick could make it sound like a compliment and threat all at once without meaning too)
And nobody was a match.
And now he was running out of time, time that he had never thought about and was too precious to him and left his hands shaking and left him scared to get in a cockpit. Every second spent with Noah trying to see a way out, researching everything, praying that the Doctor’s would find something.
So no, he didn’t sleep anymore.
He had been sat in front of the TV watching as it blared out some crap, seeing without seeing and trying very hard not feel when his phone buzzed.
He didn’t recognise the number and while he knew he was hardly combat ready there was no guarantee that anyone was on the end of the phone was a friend and not some kind of commander desperate to piss off Maverick.
“Seresin”
“Lieutenant this is Commander Kate Gordon”
Shit.
Jake started awake turning of the TV his insides suddenly twisting themselves into knots in a way that made him think he was going to be sick all over. He wasn’t sure if this was good news or bad news but…but this was three AM and surely there was no way that she would be calling unless…
Oh God please…please…please…
“Yes?”
He thought he could hear…something over the phone.
(later he would learn it was a smile)
“Lieutenant, I am pleased to tell you that we have a bone marrow match”
And as God as his witness Jake Seresin didn’t remember all that much after that.